BERLIN (Reuters) - Three major German banking associations have urged stress tests be introduced to assess the financial health of European Union member states, weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported on Saturday.
In a joint letter to Angela Merkel, the banks said more attention needed to be paid to the mid-term borrowing goals in the EU, aligning itself with the German chancellor, who has urged the bloc to tighten rules on running up budget deficits.
"To this end, we should consider whether, after the successful stress tests for banks, stress tests should be performed to measure how solid member states' borrowing policies are," the paper quoted the banks as saying.
Germany's commercial banks association (BdB), the DSGV savings banks' association and the BVR, which represents co-operative banks, signed the letter, stressing their desire for a stable euro, also a mantra of the government.
The banks put forward a four-point plan to Merkel aimed at enforcing greater budgetary discipline.
These included recommendations that EU funds could be frozen or denied deficit sinners, and that member states could have voting rights suspended -- another idea Germany has floated.
The proposals had come from an exchange of letters with the chancellor, which began in mid-April, the paper said.
(Reporting by Dave Graham; editing by James Jukwey)
